Minister activities

Rev. J. Laning announced on April 19 that God had led him to decline the call extended to him from First PRC of Edmonton, AB, Canada.

Grandville PRC has a new trio for minister-on-loan to Singapore: Rev. G. Eriks (Hudsonville PRC), Rev. E. Guichelaar (Randolph PRC), and Rev. R. Kleyn (Cove­nant of Grace PRC).

Rev J. Mahtani received the calls from Kalamazoo PRC, Unity PRC, and Hope PRC (Grand Rapids, MI). On May 3 Rev. Mahtani announced he had been led by God to accept the call to Hope PRC and decline the other two calls. May God bless Rev. Mahtani and the Hope congregation in the times ahead. And may Kalamazoo and Unity remain confident that God will bring to them a pastor in His time.

On April 29 Rev. Joshua Engelsma, pastor at Doon, IA PRC celebrated his birthday. During this time, the gover­nor of Iowa had forbidden gatherings exceeding 10 per­sons, so no party was held. But in addition to calls, texts, emails, cards, and gifts—members of Doon held a birth­day parade! A long line of cars, many decorated for the occasion, paraded past the parsonage with horns blaring and lights flashing. Once all were parked at the church parking lot a rousing chorus of “Happy Birth­day” was sung, followed by selected verses from Psalter 400, and finally “God Be with You ’til We Meet Again!” The turnout was tremendous for this special occasion.

Sister-church activities

Sadly, given the uncertainty caused by the coronavirus (in God’s sovereign decree), the British Reformed Fellowship (BRF) Conference has been rescheduled to (basically) the same week next year. Thus the BRF Conference will not be taking place in 2020. Instead, it is rescheduled to July 10-17, 2021.

The rescheduled BRF Conference details:

New date: July 10-17, 2021

Same venue: Castlewellan Castle (http://castlewellancastle.org)

Same theme: Union With Christ Same speakers: Prof. D. Engelsma and Rev. A. Lanning (USA), with John Perkins (England) giving the special lecture. For more on the BRF, see https://www.britishre- formed.org.

Here are some quotes from the Northern Ireland bul­letin regarding materials they make available:

“Always a pleasure to talk with you on the phone. I’m enjoying the materials you kindly sent me. The Standard Bearers are always welcome. I pass them on to friends when I’ve read them. Praying for the CPRC in Ballymena that the Lord’s blessing would be upon you.”—Lincolnshire, England

“I was very blessed by Christ’s Spiritual Kingdom by Prof. Engelsma. I devoured it within the first week upon its arrival. I am looking forward to diving into The Coming of Zion’s Redeemer by Ronald Hanko sometime soon.”—Norway

“I visited the CPRC website and I studied Reformed theology, recently and especially subjects such as common grace, the regulative principle of worship, and exclusive psalmody. The articles regarding these subjects on the site helped me in my understanding about several doctrines. I’m thankful to God for these Reformed and biblical materials… I’m reading the articles and books available (‘Common Grace Considered’ by Herman Hanko, for example) and I have been deeply blessed through these texts. I ask my CPRC brothers to pray for me and my church. Pray that God will open their spiritual eyes and the Holy Spirit may shine and confirm the Word’s truth. If possible, send me more material or websites where I might read or buy books.”—Brazil

Mission activities

All of Manila remained shut down until at least May 15. Our missionaries are home-bound in their subdivision. They are leading worship services and teaching seminary classes via electronic means and it seems to be going quite well. Throughout the world God’s people benefit by today’s technology when even a generation ago that would not have been the case.